Business Model Design

A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO ANALYZING

AND CHANGING THE WAY YOU DO BUSINESS
Michael Lachapelle

What is the issue?

Business in the 21 st century is characterized by an unprecedented rate of change,
the nature of which is redefining the foundational beliefs of last century’s businesses.

Why is it important?
Every organization has a business model, whether that model is expressed explicitly
or is understood implicitly. What determines an organization’s success is how well
it understands and evolves its business model. With barriers to entering markets
disappearing and innovation and disruption coming from new interests in the industry
as well as outsiders using new technologies, every business must explicitly understand
and design its business to ensure relevance to customers, sustainability, and growth.

What can be done?

Business leaders must adopt a designer mindset and support this with methods drawn
from design and visual thinking as well as the tools developed for business models and
value proposition design.

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING GUIDELINE GUIDELINE

CONTENTS
Introduction to the Concept 2
What is RAISE and How does it Apply to the Business Model Design? 4
Business in the 21st Century — the New Reality 4
Importance of a Shared Language 5
The Business Model Canvas 6
The Business Model Canvas Components 8
How to Use the Business Model Canvas 16
In Summary 18
Appendix A — Resource Reference List 19
 2

Introduction to the Concept

Nespresso, one of the most successful and creative businesses of the last 20 years has rewritten the
formula for a product-based business model in the coffee industry. The company is worth in excess of
US $4 billion as a result of building a business model that splits its offerings into two distinct product
lines (coffee pods and coffee machines), designing separate strategies for each line. The machines are
sold through a broad network and the one-time sales are shared with retailers. The manufacturing of
the machines is outsourced to eight partners, leaving Nespresso to focus on research and design.
The pods, recurring sales, are distributed through Nespresso-owned channels. Nespresso manufac-
tures its own pods, a process it controls tightly.

Nespresso almost failed when it first launched. Its initial business model design offered the machine
and pods as a bundled product, sold to businesses through other coffee machine manufacturers. Par-
ent company Nestlé nearly shut Nespresso down, until a new CEO came up with the idea to offer the
two products separately, designing a unique strategy for each. Nespresso’s technology and products
didn’t change; the key to success involved changing the business model.

In its simplest expression, a business model is an organization’s rationale for how it creates and deliv-
ers value that its customers/clients/members consider important, and how the organization captures
a value in return. The concept of the business model is relevant to organizations of all sizes across all
industries, sectors, and associations. Any organization or enterprise that creates value for a target
group will have a business model, one that is either recognized and externalized or internalized and
intuitive.

This guideline will introduce the business model canvas, a key tool for describing, designing, and
challenging the way organizations do business, and creating innovation, prototyping new ways to
do business.

The business model canvas (Figure 1) is a framework that allows organizations to describe any busi-
ness model using nine fundamental building blocks. The term canvas is used because the framework,
like a painter’s canvas, is a creative space to visually represent ideas and elements of the business
model. The business model canvas serves as the blueprint for how the organization is to implement
the business strategy.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 3

FIGURE 1: THE BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

Source — Strategyzer.com — Business Model Generation authors A. Osterwalder & Y. Pigneur

The canvas framework (Figure 1) consists of three core areas:

• The customer-facing area (front stage), which consists of the target groups for whom value is cre-
ated, the value proposition that creates the benefits customers expect, the channels through which
the business interacts with its customers, and the strategies by which the business manages their
customer relationships.
• The infrastructure (back stage), which includes the activities, resources, and partnerships required
to build and deliver value to customers.
• The financials (sustainability) of the business, which balance revenues and costs.

Businesses face many challenges facilitating internal strategic alignment, promoting and creating
innovation, integrating companies or new leaders, and communicating internally and externally. To
overcome these challenges, the organization requires a common language and shared understanding
of the business that allows a structured and repeatable process to sharing, designing and changing
the business.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 4

What is RAISE and How does it Apply to the

Business Model Design?
In the current global economy, the business environment is always changing. Some changes are so
dramatic that everybody notices them, but others may slowly creep up over the years before they
can no longer be ignored.

Fortunately, the business model design is one such tactic than an organization may employ to address
how it will respond to these ever-evolving business challenges. The business model can also ensure an
organization focuses on what matters most (versus reactively responding to “fires” or “crises”) — its
customers or core stakeholders — in an effort to respond to external market forces and focus an orga-
nization’s efforts.

A useful ideology for showcasing the importance of the business model design is CPA Canada’s RAISE
philosophy (where Resilient + Adaptive + Innovative = Sustainable Enterprises) in the implementation
of the business model design. The RAISE philosophy can help guide an organization (or enterprise)
towards a unique strategy that provides an ongoing sustainable edge. The key drivers are explored next.

Organizations today must demonstrate their resilience in the face of constant turmoil and disruption.
They need to respond quickly to these constant and unexpected external changes while at the same
time sustaining regular business operations. The business model design refocuses an organization’s
efforts back to what is important as these crises arise and enables organizations to isolate such prob-
lems proactively so that strategic focus and awareness are maintained.

Organizations more than ever need to be adaptive in their ability to adjust to these ongoing market
shifts in the competitive landscape. Given this changed environment, they need to be nimble and
flexible enough to “proactively” respond to any and all competitive or market changes. The business
model employs methods to adapt.

Opportunities to innovate are typically a primary contributor to organizational success and longev-
ity. However, it is one area that many fail to adequately explore or execute upon. The business model
design is one such vehicle that can be leveraged to communicate the importance of innovation in
achieve its strategic and operational objectives.

Embracing such drivers as key components of an organizations strategic and operational plans and
decisions, ensures an organization’s (or enterprise’s) sustainable competitive edge. Combining the
resilient, adaptive and innovative drivers of success results in a unique and robust strategy for adopt-
ing and implementing the business model design as explored throughout the course of this guideline.

Business in the 21st Century — the New Reality

The marketplace is in turmoil. Market reach has become a global phenomenon, with location con-
straints disappearing. An organization’s competitors and partners may no longer be geographically
nearby. Its biggest competitor may not even be in the same industry. Think of what Uber and AirBnB,
software companies, are doing to the transportation and travel industries. Uber does not own a fleet
of cars (or drive any). AirBnB does not own hotels (or host guests). Yet both of these companies have
had a serious impact on their respective industries.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 5

The rise of new markets in China, Brazil, and India as well as rapidly disappearing barriers to entry in
established markets are changing the face of global business. Organizations more than ever need to
demonstrate resilience (the resilient in RAISE) in the face of turmoil and disruption.

Technology shifts are dizzying. Technology has redefined not only the way we communicate but
also the way we transact business and how we expect businesses to interact with their customers.
Electronic transactions (e.g., loyalty swipe cards, RFID chip cards, tap and go payments, and direct
transfers) are sweeping the marketplace, redefining how we engage and purchase. The newest bat-
tleground is e-wallets, which aim to replace credit and debit cards. Social and mobile computing have
rewritten the rules of business and they continue to create new rules and new expectations.

Customers are more informed. Customers have access to information like never before. Through
networks and social media, customers have access to opinions and reviews. Consumers are checking
competitors pricing while in a store and checking availability elsewhere, before making the decision
to purchase the item in the current store. Often a company’s customers are more informed about
products than the company’s salespeople are.

We have to learn to challenge ideas we may have previously considered orthodox in order to adapt
(the adaptive in RAISE) to a marketplace that is messy, often unclear, and rapidly changing. Mobile
technology, social networks, and social media have made customers expect interactions with orga-
nizations to be immediate, responsive, and transparent.

Today’s environment of fast-paced market change has resulted in shorter product development
cycles, reduced shelf life of products and services, empowered consumers, and a massive change in
the nature of engagement with customers. Companies today are under constant pressure to innovate,
often driven by pressure from competitors outside the industry. The 20th century media industry (film,
television, video, music) has been massively disrupted by non-media companies who first redefined
how people watch video and are now entering the field of production: Amazon (an online sales com-
pany), Apple (a technology company), and Netflix (a distribution company) have become more than
distribution systems for content, they are now competitors in content development.

Many, if not most, of our strategic tools and approaches were formed to cope with the challenges of
the previous century. The business model, along with companion approaches like customer insight,
agile methods, design and visual thinking, form the 21st century strategic tool set that help businesses
operate and innovate effectively. This is a perfect example of how the drivers of RAISE are used in
practice.

Importance of a Shared Language

Fundamental to any functionally distributed organization is the challenge of building a common
understanding of the business. It is nearly impossible for a single executive or leader to solve stra-
tegic challenges alone: they require the input of various parts of the business and often the support
of external experts. Therein lies the challenge: how to reach a consensus on strategy with a group of
people who see the business very differently.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 6

Marketing professionals do not see the business the same way finance or product development pro-
fessionals see it. The same issues arise in social impact, member-based or government organizations
with multiple programs and services. People will view the business with the blinders or filters associ-
ated with their perspective on the business. This has an enormous impact when strategic discussions
require cross-functional or cross-program direction. How do you achieve a consensus between people
who have such divergent points of view to agree on and understand a common perspective?

One solution is to have these people share their ideas and interpretations — formalize and externalize
them — with the group so they can be understood. The business model approach focuses attention on
the use of a visual tool, the business model canvas, to build a common understanding using a shared
language.

The business model canvas is a framework FIGURE 2: HOW DOES THE BUSINESS MODEL
composed of the nine essential building blocks CANVAS HELP YOU?

of any organization’s business (listed later in

this document). It allows people to capture
ideas and share them visually to improve under-
standing and discussion.

Using the Business Model Canvas

Alexander Osterwalder (co-creator of the busi-
ness model canvas) and his team surveyed
organizations and business executives around the
world on how they use the canvas and how the
canvas creates value for them (Figure 2). They
found that the main benefit of the canvas was
that it facilitated a common language that led to Source — Strategyzer.com: Business Model Canvas Field Research
Report
better strategic conversations and better ideas.

The Business Model Canvas

The business model canvas facilitates the understanding of the organization’s existing business,
enables efforts to change the business, or to create new businesses and ventures.

A business model can be described through nine core building blocks:

1. Customer segments for whom you create value
2. Value proposition that is important to the customers
3. Channels through which you reach customers
4. Customer relations you establish to acquire and retain customers
5. Revenue streams you generate
6. Key activities you must do to be successful
7. Key resources you need to run the business
8. Key partners to support and help you run the business
9. Cost structure to run the business model

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 7

The nine components are mapped out in a framework structure called the business model canvas
(Figure 3).

FIGURE 3: THE BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

Source — Strategyzer.com — Business Model Generation authors A. Osterwalder & Y. Pigneur

Using the business model canvas an organization can map out its entire business model in one image.
This works for established companies executing their current business as well as innovating new
products and services, not-for-profit, membership-based organization, as well as start-ups and
social ventures.

The power of this approach lies in the ability to apply the business model concepts and to use the tool
at various levels within an organization: the whole enterprise, specific sectors or business lines, individ-
ual business units, or particular solutions, products, and/or services.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 8

The Business Model Canvas Components

Customer Segments (CS)

Customer segments represent the people or organizations for which
you are creating value. This includes users (non-paying) and paying
customers.

A business model may define one or more “segments” of custom-

ers, differentiating them by their needs. Customer segments and
their needs should be defined by the outcomes the customers are
trying to achieve, most effectively identified by the “jobs” they are trying to get done, or the “prob-
lems” they are trying to solve.

Customers are motivated by what they have to do rather than who they are. Creating segments based
on the outcomes they are trying to achieve is known as outcome-driven innovation. Each segment’s
needs become the drivers of the value proposition design. The nature of a customer’s job may be
function (to achieve something), social (how they are perceived), or emotional (how they feel).

Hilti took it further. Understanding that construc-

tion companies purchase the tools their workers’
use, Hilti addressed a whole new set of jobs:
helping construction companies avoid downtime
when tools needed to be maintained or replaced.
This insight was the inspiration for moving from a
one-time sales (with service added on) approach,
to a subscription-based tool service that removed
the pains of tool maintenance, the cost of tool
replacement, and the downtime associated
with unavailable tools. This helped construction
companies accomplish their desired outcomes:
completing projects on time and on budget.
Guiding Questions to Ask About
Customer Segments
• For whom are you creating value?
• What is the “job-to-be-done” of
your customers?
• What problems are your customers
trying to solve?
• How will you group (i.e., segment)
your customers based on their jobs
and problems?

The Hilti Case Study — Harvard Business School

Hilti, a construction tools manufacturer, is a prime example of the importance of an organiza-
tion understanding its customers’ job-to-be-done. The Harvard Business School case study is
often cited as the root of this approach. In researching the sales of hand drills, Hilti found that
customers buy them not because they want to own a drill but because they have projects that
require holes to be drilled. That is the job customers have to do. Once Hilti pinpointed this as
the motivation, it allowed them to identify two distinct types of customers who share the same
job of drilling holes: construction workers and home renovators, each with their own set of
outcomes, problems, and needs. Construction workers need heavy duty, durable, easily main-
tained tools that are used every day. Home renovators require lighter duty tools for occasional
use, which will be stored for long periods. This guided Hilti to cater to each group, designing
two very different product lines.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 9

Value Proposition (VP)

The value proposition is the benefit your customers will get from a
product, a service, or a bundle of products and services you offer.
The offer (solutions, products, or services) should not be confused
with or equated to a value proposition.

For customers of FedEx, the value proposition

is the “peace of mind” of knowing packages
will get to the correct destination on time. What
FedEx offers is a variety of shipping methods Guiding Questions to Ask About
and timeframes, insurance, guarantees, online Value Propositions
real-time tracking, and delivery confirmations. • What are you delivering that is of
value to the customer?
The offer addresses the gains (i.e., outcomes)
• What need are you satisfying that
the customers are hoping to achieve, solves
helps the customer get a job done
their problems, or delivers value that exceeds
or solve a problem?
the expectations of the customer. Additionally,
• What are the key gains (outcomes)
the offer addresses the pains (i.e., barriers) the
and pains (barriers) you are
customers may experience getting their job done
addressing for the customer?
or solving their problem. When the offer effec-
tively addresses needs created by the gains and
pains, the value proposition is delivered to the
customers and product-market fit is achieved.

Channels (CH)
Channels represent the touch-points the business will use to interact
with its customers. There are two aspects to channels.

The first aspect that consists of communications with customers:

letting them know what the business has on offer and how to access
the offers. Social media networks (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) and
mobile computing have revolutionized how
businesses communicate with their customers.
Guiding Questions to Ask About
The second aspect involves the mechanisms
Channels
used to transact business with customers. A
• How do you communicate with
bricks and mortar business will have physical
your customers?
store locations. A business that sells directly
• How are products and services
to customers in the customers’ workplace may
delivered or distributed?
need a sales force. An internet-based busi-
• How is business transacted with
ness will be concerned with processing sales
customers?
transactions, collecting payments, and delivery
• Which channels are direct (i.e., owned
methods.
and controlled by you) or indirect
(i.e., through partners)?

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 10

Groupon’s Business Channels

The past few years for Groupon, the daily deals company, have been very turbulent, but the
company has made some shifts in how they operate. Part of the issue with this company has
always been the channels used for signing companies for the program and how they communi-
cate with their coupon users. Core to Groupon’s business, and a large part of its cost structure,
is the sales channel of a necessary sales force on the street to get businesses to sign up to
Groupon’s deals. As the company has tried to stabilize, it has shifted its channels from daily
push emails on deals to a platform where coupon users can search for deals of most interest
to them. This shift in communication approach required a very effective website (with solid
search functionality as its critical channel) and investment in marketing to bring the consumers
to the website. 

Customer Relationships (CR)

Customer relationships articulate the way in which a company inter-
acts with its customers as well as strategies for customer acquisition
and retention.

The business must consider the nature of its relationship with cus-
tomers: short term or long term, automated or personal. Think of
Amazon and Netflix as examples of companies that have automated
relationships: their customers are global and they maintain individual
profiles, which the company mines for information (as well as the activity associated with each profile).
In contrast, Rogers’ Small Business Help Line for its business phone service is a personal relationship
focussed on problem solving. Companies must understand the nature of the relationship customers
want and how best to scale this relationship across the market.

The customer relationships component also includes the company’s strategies for acquiring new
customers, keeping their current customers engaged, and increasing customer interaction. These are
commonly referred to as the business’s Get-
Keep-Grow strategies. Online communities and
user forums are a common method for compa-
Guiding Questions to Ask About
nies to engage and retain customers as well as
Customer Relations
provide access to other users as a means of trou-
• What kind of relationship do your
bleshooting issues the customer may encounter.
customers want?
Customer relationships often involve the quali- • What are your strategies to attract
ties of an offer (e.g., local, fair trade, ease of use, new customers?
frictionless purchasing), brand, or the discounts • How will you retain your customers’
and incentives that get new customers to try the participation?
product or service for the first time. For exam- • How will you get your customers to
ple, Tim Horton’s uses its “Canadian” brand very increase their interactions with you?
effectively to attract customers and build its

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 11

reputation. Customer relationships can also include retention strategies such as loyalty programs and
incentives to keep customers coming back or increasing their activity. Tim Horton’s also relies on its
famous “Roll Up The Rim” to win contest to attract and retain customers. Other examples of retention
strategies are affinity and loyalty programs that leverage the progression and reward dynamics to
keep customers engaged with the company.

Dollar Shave Club Re-defines the Shaving Industry

For many years, the shaving industry has been a stable, known dynamic of customers purchas-
ing cheap or promotional razors and expensive blades, required to accompany these razors.
This strategy was so successful that it became a label for a business model pattern: “razor and
blade.” The increasing costs of the blades and the profits companies were reaping from the
blades, coupled with customers’ frustration at the retail level (with the expensive blades often
locked away) drove the disruption of the shaving product industry. The game changed in 2011
with the launch of Dollar Shave Club. Using a lighthearted, humourous social media strategy
along with membership-based acquisition and retention strategies, the company disrupted the
industry. The company’s viral YouTube videos and extremely active Twitter and Facebook inter-
action with customers brought a new dynamic to the men’s grooming industry. In 2016, Dollar
Shave Club was acquired by Unilever for a reported $US1 billion. The case study that accompa-
nies this guideline explores this further.

In a traditional “razor and blade” business model, customer acquisition is based on a promotional, free,
or inexpensive “bait” product (e.g., the razor) and a high-margin disposable product (e.g., the blades)
with the company relying on extensive patents to “lock-in” customers to the product. This pattern
also uses retail-based advertising and product placement strategies for customer attention. Dollar
Shave Club radically changed this by eliminating the retail component, opting instead for a direct
sales (dis-intermediating) model. The company’s customer acquisition and retention is based, not on
the product, but on the social and emotional impact of the whole experience (i.e., buying, enjoying,
and using the product). Social media engagement (e.g., newsletters, humorous videos) drive viral
and network effects.

Additional Guidance — Differentiating Customer Relations and Channels

This is a common area of uncertainty for those new to the business model canvas. What is the differ-
ence between the channels you use and customer relationship approaches?

Customer relationships (CR) are about the strategies the business will follow in Get-Keep-Grow while
channels (CH) are about the mechanisms companies use to deliver on those strategies.

A business may have an acquisition strategy (i.e., how to bring customers in) that involves using social
media to make offers or special deals. The mechanisms the company chooses as channels may be
limited to Facebook and Twitter. Another company, in the fashion industry for example, may have a
similar customer acquisition strategy, but it may choose to use more visual platforms like Instagram
or Pinterest as channels to promote their products.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 12

Revenue Streams (R$)

Revenue streams are the means by which businesses capture value
from its customers. At the strategic level, revenue streams are
concerned with the types of revenues captured as the return value
rather than the specific pricing formula.

The revenue streams can be transactional (e.g., unique sales)

or recurring (e.g., ongoing interactions such as subscriptions or
memberships). Revenue streams can involve fixed, negotiated,
or dynamic pricing.

There are business models in which products

or services are provided without charge to act
as an engagement incentive with the customer.
The “freemium” service usually involves a lower
quality or reduced functionality, or may be a
limited-time, limited-capacity offer. Compa-
nies hope to spur customers to purchase the
chargeable products and services. Skype is a
great example of this model. Millions of people
around the world make video or voice calls for
free through the base service. However, if you
want to make conference calls or phone a land-
line or mobile number, you have to pay for the
“upgraded services.”
Guiding Questions to Ask About
Revenue Streams
• What value are customers willing
to pay for?
• How often will they pay? Transaction
or recurring?
• What is the revenue type? Sales,
subscription, use, license, advertising?
• To what customer segment-value
proposition is the revenue connected?

In recent years, with the success of the software as a service (SaaS) model, companies have shifted
from a product or upgrade sales model (i.e., transactional revenues) to an online service requiring a
subscription (i.e., recurring revenues). Great examples of this are Adobe and Intuit Quickbooks.

The Shift to Recurring Revenue

Intuit, creators of the small business accounting software Quickbooks, has made a concerted
effort to shift its clients from purchasing and installing software locally (i.e., a one-time sales
transaction) to subscribing to a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) model (i.e., recurring
monthly subscription revenue). Intuit’s lowest level product, Easy Start, is now only offered as
a subscription, cloud-based service, and to encourage users to shift to the subscription model,
the company no longer supports locally installed software.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 13

Is “Free” Really Free?

Facebook is widely considered an icon of the revenue strategy of selling acquired data and
intelligence to third parties. The strategy is based on providing a service to users for “free,”
then gathering and mining user data. The resulting data and intelligence is sold to advertisers
and other product-service providers. This approach is often characterized by the phrase: if you
don’t pay for the product, then you are the product.

Additional Guidance — Having a balanced business model

Each business model has a unique critical relationship between customers, the value the business cre-
ates for customers, and the revenue generated. To have a balanced business model there should never
be an orphan among these three components. Every customer segment must have at least one related
value proposition and revenue stream. There should never be a revenue stream that is not related to a
value proposition and a customer segment. Likewise, a value proposition must be targeted to at least
one customer segment and have a revenue stream.

When value is provided to customers for free (e.g., Skype’s free video call service), it is important to
track that free revenue stream. Such business models may be financially unsustainable for the com-
pany over the long term. It is strongly recommended to identify free products or services as a revenue
stream since they may be free now but may have a fee in the future. Tracking the “free” revenue stream
allows companies to assess the impact of the offer and the customer segment on the financials of the
business.

A further consideration, one that is important to governments and not-for-profits, is the “third party
funded” business model pattern. In this model Party A pays the business to deliver services or products
to Party B. The business may receive no money from Party B, but it may acquire data as an alternate
form of revenue. The data collected is used to justify to Party A how effective the business has been.
Many government-based business models suffer because they do not include data-gathering as a fun-
damental part of their business model.

Key Activities (KA)

The Key Activities are the most important things the business must
do make the business model successful.

Activities are the capabilities necessary for the business to be suc-

cessful. It is important here to focus on the critical activities for
the particular business in question to be successful, rather than
a broad list of the business’s day-to-day activities. Typical ele-
ments in the key activities block of a business model may include:
IP creation, design (e.g., product or software), manufacturing, marketing, supply chain management,
membership/subscription management, and content creation.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 14

A business’s key capabilities will vary depending

on the type of business:
• Value-added businesses (e.g., manufacturing,
retail) must concern themselves with supply
chain, product or service creation, marketing,
and distribution.
• Solution businesses (e.g., consulting, health
services) must be concerned with problem
acquisition, finding and choosing solutions,
and implementing those solutions.
• Networking businesses (e.g., marketplaces,
multi-sided platforms) must focus on con-
necting customers, providing services to the
network, and enabling interactions with the network infrastructure.
Guiding Questions to Ask About
Key Activities
• What are the core activities necessary
for the business’s success?
• What type of business is it?
Value-added, problem solving,
or networking?
• Which key activities will be done
in the business, or outsourced?

The key activities component is often is susceptible to information overload. It is very easy to get
bogged down in detail when looking at activities. Key activities must be kept at a strategic level
(i.e., capabilities), not at an operational level (i.e., processes).

Key Resources (KR)

The key resources are the most important assets required to make
the business work.

There are four types of key resources the business has to consider:
• Intangible resources are those intellectual or virtual resources
necessary to run the business (e.g., intellectual property, patents
and copyrights, data).
• Tangible resources are the physical resources necessary to run
the business (e.g., facilities, vehicles, machines, IT infrastructure).
• Human resources are comprised of people and expertise (e.g., sales force, subject matter expertise).
• Financial resources, which differ from rev-
enue in that they are specific to capital
investment (e.g., loans, guarantees, line of
credit, stock), are used to launch or expand
Guiding Questions to Ask About
the business.
Key Resources
• What tangible resources does the
business need (e.g., plants, stores, IT)?
Additional Guidance — Identifying
• What intangible resources does the
necessary resources and activities
business need (e.g., data, licenses)?
The infrastructure components of key activities
• Which human resources are critical to
and key resources are the “create value” part of
the business’s success (e.g., expertise,
the definition of a business model. As a business
people)?
identifies its activities and resources, it is a good
• What finances does the business need
practice to check them against the value propo-
to build, launch, or grow?
sitions (i.e., have you identified all the elements

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 15

necessary to create those value propositions?). Likewise, it is important for the business to check activ-
ities and assets against customer relationship strategies and channels to make sure it accounts for all
elements.

Key Partners (KP)

Key partners form the network of suppliers and other supporters a
business relies on to be successful.

Businesses very rarely have all the resources they need to run the
business independently. Businesses require partnerships in order to
acquire the resources they need to operate, reduce risks, or optimize
the business by providing scale.

Partnerships can be built on strategic alliances,

joint ventures, or buyer-supplier relationships.
Guiding Questions to Ask About
Relationships with partners can involve oper-
Key Partners
ational integration or activity outsourcing. It is
• Who are the company’s suppliers?
essential for every partnership to recognize and
• Who is providing resources the
acknowledge the value created for each partner.
company needs?
In general, there are three reasons for the creation • Who is integrated into the company’s
of partnerships: activities?
1. Scale — one partner provides the other access • Who is providing support to the
to new customers, new markets, or econo- company’s key activities (e.g.,
mies of scale. outsourced, open innovation)?
2. Resources — one partner provides the other
resources or assets it does not have.
3. Risk reduction — one partner helps the other reduce risks associated with the cost of production
or marketplace change.

The Partnerships of Giants

The athletic company Adidas entered into a partnership with Sennheiser to create sport-
oriented headphones. Adidas, experts in athletics and authentic performance products, was
looking for a new product to extend their offering to their market. Lacking expertise in audio
electronics, it turned to Sennheiser, experts in sound and headphones, which was looking to
expand into new markets. For Adidas, the partnership was about gaining resources and exper-
tise in specialized product development. For Sennheiser, the partnership was about gaining
access to a new market and the scale Adidas brand can offer.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 16

Cost Structure (C$)

Cost structure relates to the costs a business incurs to operate its
business.

Which costs will have the most impact on the business? The busi-
ness’s costs are derived from considering the other components of
the model: activities, resources, and partnerships.

Like key activities, cost structure is a component

that can often become bogged down by detail.
Cost structure is not concerned with a line-item
Guiding Questions to Ask About
level of detail. The purpose of this area is iden-
Cost Structure
tifying the cost centres related to infrastructure
• What are the business’s most
and delivery.
important cost centres?
The type of costs should also be considered. • What type of costs are they
Costs may be fixed (e.g., rent, equipment), (e.g., fixed or variable)?
remaining the same despite the business’s • What are the most expensive
volume (e.g., sales transactions or production). key activities and resources?
Costs may be variable (e.g., manufacturing • What are the costs inherent in
supplies), varying proportionally with the vol- the business’s key partnerships?
ume of business. Costs may also be associated
with key partners (e.g., licensing, outsourced
manufacturing).

In some cases, executives or representatives of the business may want to see costs include items such
as salaries and operational costs. In such cases, one may include a cost centre titled Salary General
and Administration (SG&A) as a catchall.

How to Use the Business Model Canvas

The business model canvas is an extremely effective framework and tool for companies to understand,
design, and change the way they do business. Most people, even those very familiar with the canvas,
often fail to appreciate the many ways organizations can use this tool.

The business model canvas can be used in four key areas:

1. Strategy
2. Innovation
3. Organizational alignment
4. Investing

Using the Canvas as a Strategic Tool

The canvas can be an integral part of an organization’s strategic planning process. Understanding
the dynamics of one’s business (i.e., its strengths and weaknesses as well as external constraints
and influences) is a key building block of a strategic plan. The canvas is a “blueprint” of the strategy.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 17

The canvas can be a part of business-unit planning. It creates a shared language between business
units and each unit can extrapolate its business as part of the whole company (e.g., nested models).

The canvas can serve as a dashboard to track progress. By establishing metrics in each of the criti-
cal components of the canvass (or those in which change initiatives are happening), businesses can
track the progress of its initiatives. Businesses can colour-code strategic initiatives to set them apart,
visually.

The canvas can be used to design and evaluate partnerships. Businesses can map out the current
state of its business model and compare it with the business model of a potential partner to assess
the quality of fit as well as benefits of a partnership.

The canvas can be used for competitive analysis. A business environment analysis focuses on key
trends and changes in the market. Businesses can go further and sketch out models of key competi-
tors to better understand the landscape.

Organizations can use the canvas to map out each of its various business lines along the continuum
of improving existing models to inventing new models. In doing so, the canvas becomes a key tool
for managing a “portfolio” of business models, an important component of long-term strategy.

In each of these areas, the business model canvas is a key tool for supporting, integrating, and aligning
strategic conversations.

Using the Canvas as an Innovation Tool

Innovation (the innovation in RAISE) is an uncertain and often messy process. The front end of the
innovation process, the search for a business model that works, is discovery driven and requires the
building and testing of ideas. This is where the business model canvas originated.

The book Business Model Generation (Osterwalder and Pigneur, Wiley, 2010) was predicated, in large
part, on looking at how companies design, test, and build new growth engines. The business model
canvas, the main tool of the book, can be used to prototype ideas for business change.

The canvas can be used as a template to develop new ideas in multidisciplinary innovation teams, or
for ideas submitted across the organization. With a clear understanding of the organization’s business
model, the canvas can be used as a test structure or as a core component of the business case for how
an innovation project will improve the business. It is a tool for comparing products, services, or ideas
from different business units.

In a business-to-business (B2B) environment, the canvas can be used to map out the business models
of customers. By mapping their models, organizations can better understand customers and their
needs. It allows companies to adapt (the adaptive in RAISE) to better serve customers.

The business model canvas can be a key tool and template for the generation and testing of ideas and,
when combined with design thinking approaches and customer development process, makes a pow-
erful innovation enabler.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 18

Using the Canvas to Build Organizational Alignment

The business model canvas can be used as part of a new executive’s orientation give them a better
understanding of the business’s strategy and the executive’s involvement, particularly if the person is
new to the organization. The canvas has also been used during transitions of board members in volun-
teer-based and not-for-profit organizations.

The canvas can be used to share and disseminate strategic directions of the organization. By creating
a common language and a commonly understood frame of reference, the canvas (the blueprint of the
strategy) can be a powerful communication tool. This works even more effectively where the strategic
direction is being co-created across the organization.

Possibly the most potent use of the business model canvas is to provide a shared language across the
various functions of the organization (e.g., product/service development, operations, finance, market-
ing, and sales). Often the business unit an employee belongs to will frame their view of the business
based on their lens. For example, finance may see the business in a very different way than marketing.
The canvas and its nine components create a commonly understood language and a complete refer-
ence of the business front and back stage as well as financial.

Using the Canvas to Evaluate Investment

The canvas, which provides a view of the business as a whole, helps executives understand the continu-
um of innovation, from improving existing models to inventing new ones, which in turn allows them
to make better decisions on allocating resources across the portfolio of innovation.

The business model canvas assists with mergers and acquisitions. It can be used to sketch out the
business models of two or more organizations and assess the fit of the two businesses. From the
organization-unit perspective, where integrations are happening, the canvas can be used to bet-
ter communicate the business to new leadership. Where there are multiple acquisitions, the canvas
can be used to align the new businesses with the strategy, direction, and operations of the larger
organization.

The canvas can also be used be used in developing an exit strategy, preparing a position statement
and addressing key issues ahead of a sale or acquisition, or taking the business through an IPO.

In Summary
The term “business model,” as a concept, represents the rationale of how an organization or enterprise
creates and delivers a value that is important to its target customers. The term “customer” (or, alterna-
tively, user, consumer, client, or member) is defined as the person or organization for which a business
creates value. All organizations have a business model, even if that model is intuitive or an internalized
understanding of how the business works.

The business model canvas, a framework based on nine core components, provides organizations a
common language to share, communicate, analyze, and change their business models. The business
model canvas is, most importantly, a strategic tool organization’s can use to think about their business
and to prototype new ideas, products, and services.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 19

The canvas can be used in all sectors (i.e., private, public, not-for-profit, and government) and at many
levels within an organization. It can be used at an enterprise level or at a business unit level. It can be
used with product lines, individual products and services or to prototype potential innovations or new
directions.

Professional accountants in business by their very nature can leverage their know-how and exper-
tise in guiding organizations towards implementing such a unique customer-centric and competitive
strategy. The ability of the business model design to drive alignment and focus across an organization
demonstrates how powerful a tool it can be (if implemented correctly).

This facilitates the ability for an organization to maintain and sustain itself as a resilient, adaptive, inno-
vative and sustainable enterprise (per the RAISE philosophy) in competitive marketplaces. Ultimately
these drivers will aid both the professional accountant and organizations in ensuring successful adop-
tion while equipping themselves to engage in the Canadian ideal of good business.

Appendix A — Resource Reference List

The reference list in this appendix is a good starting point for more information on the business model
canvas. There are many free and open videos and reference materials available on the internet.

Books
Osterwalder, A. and Yves Pigneur, Business Model Generation. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2010.

Alexander Osterwalder et al., Value Proposition Design. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2014.

Blank, S. and Bob Dorf, The Startup Owners Manual — Step By Step Guide to Building A Great
Company. K&S Ranch Publishing, 2012.

Johnson, Mark W., Seizing The White Space (explanation of the “job-to-be-done”). Harvard Business
School Publishing, 2010.

Tools
The Business Model Canvas is released under a Creative Commons licence and is free to use. The
requirement for use is proper attribution of the source of the tool. The canvas may be downloaded
for free at: www.strategyzer.com — Select canvas in the menu, click on the BM canvas to download

Speakers & Blogs

Alexander Osterwalder: alexosterwalder.com

Steve Blank: steveblank.com

Patrick van der Pijl: designabetterbusiness.com/teammember/patrick-van-der-pijl

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design

 20

Video Resources
BM Generation Explained: overview of the BM Canvas
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoAOzMTLP5s

M. Lachapelle on Business Models: BM dynamics and platform model

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLi8yIdHYbI

Steve Blank: How corporations can learn about innovation from start-ups
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX0EnxpkZ6I

Clayton Christensen: Understanding customer’s job-to-be-done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q63PZR7mG70

Alexander Osterwalder: The Business Model Canvas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FumwkBMhLo

About the Author

Michael Lachapelle has more than 17 year’s experience in business design, enterprise business analy-
sis, strategic management, and product and service innovation. He has worked with clients from many
sectors: private, public, not-for-profit, member-based organizations and government. His clients range
from established multi-national organizations and businesses to small enterprises and early-stage
startups. An independent consultant, Michael works with senior executives and founders helping them
better align, communicate and change the way they do business. He coaches individuals and small
teams; helps organizations implement business design methods, and facilitates product, service and
business innovation initiatives. Michael is currently the only Strategyzer certified Business Model Can-
vas coach and consultant in Canada, and one of 29 world-wide.

© 2018 Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada

This publication is one in a series on Business Model
Design. The entire series of overview, guideline,
case study 1 and case study 2 are available on our
website. For additional information or for general
inquiries, please contact us at mags@cpacanada.ca.
All rights reserved. This publication is protected by
copyright and written permission is required to reproduce,
store in a retrieval system or transmit in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise).
For information regarding permission,
please contact permissions@cpacanada.ca.

DISCLAIMER
The material contained in this management accounting guideline series is designed to provide illustrative information of
the subject matter covered. It does not establish standards or preferred practices. This material has not been considered or
acted upon by any senior or technical committees or the board of directors of CPA Canada and does not represent an official
opinion or position of CPA Canada.

Management Accounting Guideline Guideline Business Model Design